What is Eco-Agriculture?

In the more than four decades that we've been informing farmers about non-toxic alternatives to the insanity of so-called modern industrial agriculture, many terms have come and gone: organic, biological, sustainable, ecological, regenerative, and more. Despite recent claims by others, Charles Walters coined the term "eco-agriculture" back in 1970 because he wanted to rope in the concepts of "ecological" and "economical." It was the belief of our founder that unless agriculture is ecological it cannot be economical.

START WITH SCIENCE

The science called eco-agriculture is not complicated. But it is infinitely more sophisticated than the current “chemical amateurism” running rampant across our land. Eco-agriculture simply holds that to be economical, agriculture must be ecological. By contrast, for the last 50 years farmers should have been paid depletion allowances as they mined their soil — all to satisfy an international cheap food policy.

But there is another way. The many authors of the books presented here represent many centuries of experience in building — not mining — soils. The lessons they teach are fundamental:

1. Simplistic nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium (N, P and K) fertilization means malnutrition for plants, animals and people because either a shortage or marked imbalance of plant nutrients prevents balanced plant health and therefore animal and human health.

3. Insects and nature’s predators are a disposal crew; their task is to eliminate sick plants. They are summoned when they are needed, and they are repelled when they are not needed.

4. Weeds are an index of the character of the soil. It is therefore a mistake to rely on herbicides to eradicate them, since these things deal with effect, not cause.

5. Crop losses in dry weather or during mild cold snaps are not so much the result of drought and cold as nutrient deficiency.

6. Toxic rescue chemistry hopes to salvage crop production that is not fit to live so that animals and men might eat it, always with consequences for present and future generations of plants, animals and men.

7. Man-made molecules of toxic rescue chemistry do not exist in nature’s blueprints for living organisms. Since they have no counterpart in nature, they will not likely break down biologically in a time frame suitable to the head of the biotic pyramid, namely man. Carcinogenic, mutagenic and teratogenic molecules of toxic rescue chemistry have no safe level and no tolerance level.

NPK formulas as legislated (and enforced by state departments of agriculture) mean malnutrition, insect, bacterial and fungal attack, toxic rescue chemistry, weed takeover, crop loss in dry weather, and general loss of mental acuity — plus degenerative metabolic disease among the population, all when people use thus fertilized and protected food crops.

Therefore the answer to pest crop destroyers is sound fertility management in terms of exchange capacity, pH modification, and scientific farming principles that USDA, Extension and land grant colleges have with rare exception refused to teach ever since the great discovery was made that fossil fuel companies have grant money.

Young people today do not understand this profound philosophy. They turn to the farmer for answers, but most farmers no longer understand. They may still remember that nature created life, but they think the test tube and fossil fuel factory have vacated nature’s rhythm of life and death.

If you ask Acres U.S.A., What does a farmer do?, we will answer quite differently from most. In agribusiness they say a farmer produces corn, wheat, cattle or swine, or perhaps one of a hundred other crops, and this may be correct as far as it goes. But we and a few farmers see the final product of the farm as well-nourished human bodies with minds capable of thought and reason.

True, the farming profession requires a farmer to bargain with his fellow men for dollars according to some few economic laws. There is another message — it states that the farmer must also bargain with nature to get human food according to the laws of life and death.

About Acres U.S.A.

Acres U.S.A. is North America's oldest publisher on production-scale organic and sustainable farming. For more than four decades our mission has been to help farmers, ranchers and market gardeners grow food organically, sustainably, without harmful, toxic chemistry.